: Sometimes my cursor keys or keypad keys produce strange codes?
When the terminal is in application cursor key mode the cursor keys
produce  Esc O x  and otherwise  Esc [ x  where x is one of A,B,C,D.
Certain programs put the terminal in application cursor key mode;
if you kill them with kill -9, or if they crash, then the mode will
not be reset.
        % echo -e '\033c'  
resets all properties of the current VC. Just changing the cursor
application key mode is done by
        % echo -e '\033[?1h' 
(set) and
        % echo -e '\033[?1l' 
(clear).
When the terminal is in application keypad key mode the keypad keys produce Esc O y and otherwise Esc [ z ~ for certain y and z. Setting application keypad key mode is done by
        % echo -e '\033=' 
and
        % echo -e '\033>' 
clears it again.